Back in the car Rachel is full of questions, most of which I can't answer. There were dozens of reported sightings of Mickey in the weeks after she disappeared. Without any independent corroboration and given that Mrs. Bird wasn't wearing her glasses, I couldn't rely on her account.
“There must have been cameras at the station,” says Rachel.
“The footage is useless. We couldn't even tell if it was a child.”
Rachel is adamant. “I want to see it.”
“Good. That's where we're going now.”
The headquarters of London Underground is on Broadway, around the corner from New Scotland Yard. The Area Commander of the Transport Police, Chief Superintendent Paul Magee, is an old friend. I've known him for thirty years. Back in those days the IRA kept him awake at night. Now it's a different type of terrorist.
His face is thin and shaved. He looks almost youthful, despite his gray hair, which seems whiter every time I see him. Soon he'll pass for blond.
“You look like shit, Vince.”
“People keep telling me that.”
“I hear you're getting divorced again. What happened?”
“I forgot to put sugar in her tea.”
He laughs. Paul is married to a girl he met in grammar school. Shirley is a real keeper, who thinks I'm a bad influence but still made me godfather to her eldest boy.
We're sitting in Paul's office, which has a view over Wellington Barracks. He can watch the “new guard” march out every morning along Birdcage Walk to Buckingham Palace. Rachel is hanging back, waiting for an introduction. He doesn't recognize her name. I tell him we need to see a CCTV tape from three years ago.
“We don't keep them that long.”
“This one you kept. I asked you to.”
He suddenly puts two and two together and glances back at Rachel. Without another word, he takes us out of his office and down the corridor, tapping security codes into consoles and leading us deeper into the building.
Eventually, we're sitting in a small room, waiting for a video player to rewind a tape. Rachel watches motionless, even her breathing seems suspended. Grainy black-and-white images appear on the screen. They show a figure near the bottom of the escalators at Leicester Square Underground. Assuming it's a girl, she is wearing a dark blue tracksuit and carrying something in her arms. It might be a beach towel. It could be anything.
There were twelve security cameras at the station, each mounted above platforms and escalators. The angles were wrong because they didn't pick up faces. No amount of computer enhancement could make someone look up into the lens.
She pauses at the bottom of the escalator, as though momentarily unsure of where to go. Mrs. Bird comes into view and then Mr. Bird a few moments later, planting his walker and shuffling behind her. Mrs. Bird can be seen saying something to the girl, who turns away, disappearing through an arch onto the southbound platform.
The time and date are displayed in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen: 22:14, July 24, Wednesday evening.
A second camera on the platform picked up the girl again, but from much farther away. She appeared to be alone. A plump, dark-haired woman dressed in a nurse's uniform walked past her.
“So what do you think?” I ask Rachel.
She doesn't answer. I turn to face her and see tears welling up in her eyes. She blinks and they fall.
“Are you sure?”
She nods, still silent.
“But she could be seven or seventeen. You can't even see her face.”
“It's her. I know my daughter. I know how she walks and holds her head.”
Nine times out of ten I would not believe it was anything more than a mother's desperate desire to believe her daughter is alive. That's why I didn't show Rachel the tape three years ago. It risked derailing the entire investigation, sending dozens of officers off on a tangent and diverting public attention instead of focusing it.
Now I believe Rachel. I know there isn't a judge or a jury in the land who would accept beyond doubt that Mickey is the person on the tape but that doesn't matter. The person who knows her best is sure. On Wednesday, July 24—two days after she disappeared—Mickey was still alive.
31
The only other person in Joe's waiting room is a middle-aged man in a cheap suit that bunches at his shoulders when he folds his arms. He picks at his teeth with a matchstick and watches me take a seat.
“The secretary went to get coffee,” he says. “The Professor has a patient.”
I nod and notice him watching me. Finally, he asks, “Do we know each other?”
“I don't think so. Are you a copper?”
“Yeah. DS Roger Casey. They call me the Dodger.” He moves a few seats closer and thrusts out his hand, at the same time eyeing up Rachel.
“So where are you working, Roger?”
“Vice out of Holborn.”
He's sitting close, feeling a sense of camaraderie. I should probably remember his face but a lot of guys his age have left the service in the past ten years.
“You heard this one,” he asks. “How many coppers does it take to throw a man down the stairs?”
“I don't know. How many?”
“None. He fell.”
Roger laughs and I offer him a chiseled smile. He lifts an eyebrow and goes quiet.
The Professor's secretary arrives back, carrying takeout coffee and a brown paper bag stained by a pastry. She looks barely out of school and blinks through wire-frame glasses as though she should have known we were coming.
“I'm DI Ruiz. Could you tell the Professor we're here?”
She sighs, “Join the queue.”
At that moment the inner door opens and a young woman emerges with red-rimmed eyes.
Joe is behind her.
“So I'll see you next week, Christine. Remember, it's not immodest to wear culottes and it doesn't make you less feminine.”
She nods and keeps her eyes down. Everyone in the room does the same apart from Roger who starts giggling. The poor woman flees down the corridor.
Joe gives him an angry stare and is about to say something when he sees me sitting with Rachel. “Come inside, you two.”
“The Detective Sergeant was here first,” I suggest.
Joe shakes his head and sighs. “Oh dear . . . and you were doing so well, Roger.” He turns to his secretary. “For future reference, Philippa, DI Ruiz is a real police officer. Not everyone who comes in here claiming to be a detective is a fantasist.”
Philippa's cheeks redden and Rachel starts to giggle.
“I'm sorry about Roger,” says Joe, as we're ushered into his office. “He pretends to be a police officer and tricks prostitutes into giving him free sex.”
“Does it work?”
“Apparently.”
“He's a freak!”
Joe looks at me awkwardly. “Well, he's part of our team.”
There's a promising start!
Joe has spent the morning calling in favors. So far we have thirteen volunteers including two of my old rugby mates and a snitch called “Dicko” who has a nose for trouble and no sense of smell at all, which unfortunately means his personal hygiene leaves a lot to be desired.
Over the next hour the rest of the “team” arrives. Joe has managed to recruit his brother-in-law Eric and his younger sister, Rebecca, who works for the United Nations. Julianne is coming after she picks up Charlie from school. There are also several patients, including Margaret, who is nursing a torpedo-shaped life preserver, and another woman, Jean, who keeps disinfecting the phones with wet wipes.
Margaret sidles up to me. “I hear you almost drowned. Don't trust bridges.” She taps her orange torpedo reassuringly.
When the last of the stragglers arrive, I gather them in the waiting room. It is the strangest collection of “detectives” I have ever commanded.
Pinning two photographs to a corkboard, I clear my throat and introduce myself—not as a Detective Inspector but as a member of the public.
“The two people in these photographs are missing. Their names are Kirsten Fitzroy and Gerry Brandt. We hope to find them.”
“What did they do?” asks Margaret.
“I believe they kidnapped a young girl.”
A murmur goes around the room.
“We need to discover how they're linked—when they met, where they talked, what they have in common—but most importantly we have to locate them. Each of you will be given a task. You won't be asked to do anything illegal, but this is detective work and has to remain confidential.”
“Why don't we just ask the police to find them?” asks Eric, perched on the edge of a desk.
“The police aren't looking hard enough.”
“But you're a policeman!”
“Not anymore.”
Moving on, I explain that Kirsten was last seen going over the side of the Charmaine. “She suffered a stomach wound and may not have survived her injuries or the river but we're going to assume she's still alive. Gerry Brandt is a known drug dealer, pimp and armed robber. Nobody is to approach him.”
I glance at Dicko. The flesh around his mouth seems to be moving but no sound comes out.
Addressing him directly, I say, “I want you to talk to anyone who knows him—suppliers, junkies, mules, friends . . . He used to hang out in a pub on Pentonville Road. See if anyone remembers him.”
After a few seconds of clicking his teeth, he says, “Might need some readies.”
“If I catch you drinking I'll drill a hole in your head.”
The women peel their eyebrows off their hairlines.
“Maybe I should go with him,” suggests Roger.
“Fine. Remember what I said. Under no circumstances do you approach Gerry Brandt.”
Roger gives me a casual salute.
“Philippa, Margaret and Jean, I want you to ring the hospitals, clinics and doctors' surgeries. Make up a story. Say you're looking for a missing friend. Rachel and the Professor will contact Kirsten's family and any former employers. She grew up in the West Country.”
“What are you going to do?” asks Joe.
“Gerry Brandt had a former girlfriend, a skinny thing with bleeding gums and blond streaks. I'm hoping she might know where he's hiding.”
Hell's Half Mile is a road behind Kings Cross Station where the curbs get crawled and prostitutes hunt in packs. Some of these girls are barely sixteen but there's no way of telling. Even without the scars and bruises, a year on the streets adds five years to the faces.
Very few prostitutes work the streets anymore because the police have chased them indoors. Now they work for escort agencies and massage parlors, or they move around following the political conferences, trade shows and exhibitions. Become a prostitute and see the world!
The walk-up places are open doorways leading to upstairs flats with signs in the windows announcing BUSTY YOUNG MODEL or something similar. Most have a maid, usually an older woman, who takes the money and a small tip.
Apart from the passing trade, they advertise with cards in phone boxes or rely on the patron saint of the horny—the London cabbie.
Cruising the street slowly I try to recognize any of the girls. A pixie with a pageboy cut and a padded bra saunters over.
“You want to ask me something?”
“Yeah, what was on Sesame Street this morning?”
Her face flushes. “Piss off!”
“I'm looking for a particular girl. Her name is Theresa. She's about five foot six. Blond. Comes from Harrogate. And she has a tattoo on her shoulder of a butterfly.”
“What's this girl got that I ain't?”
“Boobs. Cut the crap. Have you seen her?”
“Nah.”
“OK, here's the deal. I got a fifty here. You walk down the street, knock on the doors and ask if any of the girls know this Theresa. You get me the right answer and you get the fifty.”
“Are you a copper?”
“No.” For once I'm telling the truth.
“Why you want her?”
“She won the bloody lottery. What does it matter to you?”
“I'll do it for a ton.”
“You get fifty. It's the easiest money you ever made.”
“You reckon! Some of these guys blow just looking at me.”
“Sure.”
I watch her leave. She doesn't even know how to walk like a woman yet. Maybe it's an occupational trait.
The streetlights are beginning to glow purple as they blink into life. I take a table at a delicatessen on the corner which is doing a roaring trade in takeout coffee and homemade soup served by Czech girls with heavy accents and tight tops. I'm old enough to be their grandfather but that doesn't make me feel as guilty as it should. One of them brings me coffee and a muffin that looks half-cooked inside.
The place is full of pimps and working girls, counting the wages of sin. A couple of them regard me suspiciously, sitting still and very straight like a pair of magistrates.
Pimps don't look the same in real life as they do in films. They're not snappy dressers in long leather coats and lots of gold jewelry. Mostly they're dealers and boyfriends who'd spread their own legs if anyone would pay for the privilege.
The pixie with the pageboy cut has come back. She eyes the large pot of soup steaming on a burner. I buy her a bowl. An older black girl is looking at us nervously through the window. She's dressed in a microskirt and lace-up boots. Her hair is twisted into bangs that run back from her forehead between paler strips of scalp.
“She says she knows Theresa.”
“What's her name?”
“Brittany.”
“Why won't she come inside?”
“Her pimp might be watching. He don't like her slacking. Where's my fifty?”
She reaches to snatch it out of my fingers. I pin her wrist to the table and turn it over, pulling her sleeve up her arm. Her skin is pale and unblemished.
“I'm not using,” she sniffles.
“Good. Go home.”
“Yeah, sure—you should see where I live.”
Brittany talks to me outside. She has ants in her pants about something and can't stand still. Her jaw works constantly on gum, punctuating sentences with a sucking noise.
“What's Theresa done?”
“Nothing, I just want to talk to her.”
Brittany glances down the street, trying to decide if she believes me. Eventually, she surrenders to apathy and a twenty quid note.
“She lives in a tower block in Finsbury Park. She's got a kid now.”
“Is she still on the game?”
“Only a few regulars.”
Fifteen minutes later I'm climbing to the fourteenth floor of a tower block because the lift is out of order. Various cooking smells mingle in the stairwell, along with the noise from dueling TVs and domestic disputes.
Theresa must be expecting someone else because she opens the door with a flourish, wearing only a black teddy and bunny ears.
“Shit! Who are you?”
“The Big Bad Wolf.”
She looks past me into the hallway and then back at me. The penny drops. “Oh, no!”
Turning away from the door she wraps a dressing gown around her shoulders and I follow her inside. There are baby toys scattered on the living-room floor and a monitor hums on top of the TV. The bedroom door is closed.
“You remember me?”
“Yeah.” She flicks her hair over her shoulder and lights a cigarette.
“I'm looking for Gerry.”
“You were looking for him three years ago.”
“I'm very patient.”
She glances at a pineapple-shaped clock on the wall. “Hey, I got someone coming. He's my best customer. If he finds you here he'll never come back.”
“Married is he?”
“The best customers are.”
I push aside a colorful baby rug and take a seat on the sofa bed. “About Gerry.”
“I ain't seen him.”
“Maybe he's hiding in
the bedroom.”
“Please don't wake the baby.”
She's quite a pretty-looking thing, except for her crooked nose and the junkie hollows beneath her eyes.
“Gerry ran out on me three years ago. I thought he was probably dead until he turned up again during the summer with a suntan and lots of big-shot stories about owning a bar in Thailand.”
“A bar?”
“Yeah. He had a passport and a driver's license in the name of some other geezer. I figured he must have pinched it.”
“You remember the name?”
“Peter Brannigan.”
“Why did he come back?”
“Dunno. He said he had a big payday coming.”
“When did you last see him?”
“Three days ago—must have been Tuesday night.” She stubs out her cigarette and lights another. “He came busting in here, sweating and yelling. He was scared. I ain't never seen anybody that scared. He looked like the devil himself was chasing him.”
That must have been after he crippled Ali. I remember how terrified he looked when he took off. He thought Aleksei had sent someone to kill him.
Theresa dabs at the lipstick in the corners of her mouth. “He wanted money. Said he had to get out of the country. He was crazy, I tell you. I let him stay but as soon as he fell asleep I got a knife. I put it right under here.” She points to her septum, pushing up her nostrils. “I told him to get out. If he comes back I'll kill him.”
“And that was Tuesday night.”
“Early hours of Wednesday.”
“Do you know where he went?”
“Nope. And I don't care. He's a bloody nutcase.”
The packet of cigarettes is crushed in her hand. Glossy eyes slide over the sofa and the toys before resting on me. “I got something good going here. I don't need Grub, or Peter Brannigan or whoever else he calls himself, to mess it up.”
Three hours ago it was midnight. The desk lamp in Joe's office casts a circular glow, harsh in the center and soft at the edges. My eyes are so full of grit I can only look at the shadows.
I bought pizzas at nine and the coffee ran out at eleven. The rest of the volunteers have gone home except for Joe and Rachel, who are still hard at work. A large corkboard in the waiting room is plastered with phone messages and notes. Nearby there are box files stacked five abreast beneath the window forming a makeshift shelf for leftover pizza and bottles of water.
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